Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives: April 2016

We’ve all heard the proverbial phrase “Don’t spend time reinventing the wheel,” and many of us don’t think much of it. Why is this? Was a round object that helps to transport things the crowning moment in human discovery? Did we literally find something that cannot possibly be improved up? When you think about it like this, maybe reinventing the

Adam Grant, author of the influential book Give and Take, recently gave a Ted Talk about some of the habits he’s discovered while researching original thinkers. He gives empirical evidence making a case for some of these habits, and some of them are actually surprising. Some of them include: Original thinkers and creatives tend to procrastinate more than their productive counterparts.

Sometimes we’re fortunate enough to have people in our lives that push us. These are the people who don’t give up on us, even when we want to give up on ourselves. They tell us what we need to hear, even if we don’t want to hear it. For me, this was my dad. “Without someone to help push them

Today is Earth Day, a Hallmark holiday dedicated to celebrating Earth’s birthday. Every year people spend millions of dollars on flowers and chocolate, which they then set out on their lawn to pay tribute to Earth. This has been going on for nearly 4.5 billion years. In honor of this wasteful day, I’ve come up with 4 and a half

I’ve been fortunate enough to meet many entrepreneurs as of late. Much of this interaction has come through the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition and Nevada Governor’s Cup. One thing I always seem to notice about entrepreneurs is how quick they are to come up with ideas, which leads me to a chicken/egg scenario. Are people with more ideas naturally inclined to

Today I toured one of the biggest beef plants in the world – JBS of Greeley, Colorado. JBS is the largest beef producer worldwide and had $120 billion in annual revenue in 2014. The tour was an incredibly enlightening and disgusting experience. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good New York steak, I just wasn’t really interested in seeing

Defeat is never easy to face. While even the most successful businesses will experience defeat at some point, for a young startup, defeat can feel like a hole that sinks the ship. Ucraft Brew recently experienced yet another defeat, walking away from the Nevada Governor’s Cup with no winnings. The pitch went well, the judges had a great feedback, yet

Ucraft Brew has done it again! We successfully made it through our second pitch for the Nevada Governor’s Cup. As I’ve discussed before, it may feel nice to finally be done with our pitch after weeks of stressing about it, but there’s still work to be done. My team and I will need to sit down soon and really go

Entrepreneurs are notorious for biting off more than they can chew. In many ways this a fundamental part of entrepreneurship; it takes a ton of work, being a self-starter is crucial, and sometimes we over exert ourselves when trying to juggle so many things at once (not many of us can just drop everything else we’re doing to focus on

Being a young entrepreneur wasn’t always easy. When the grass wasn’t growing, I had to figure out a way to keep a steady cash flow. I was getting close to 15 years old, and going to the movies with friends wasn’t cheap. A year earlier, I had saved up enough money to buy a new computer, with the intention of